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I was writing the other day and remembered– for the first time in a long while– why I loved it so much.

The joy of creation.

Having everything and anything be possible.

Being responsible for selecting the exact right word to make something powerful.

The wonder.

So many things have been stealing the wonder in recent years: deadlines and contracts, envy, comparing myself to other writers, everything to do with Twitter, anxiety, pressure, loss of confidence.

Somehow I had convinced myself that I needed to write a perfect book. I’m not even sure such a thing exists.

Instead of working on the next sentence or the next paragraph, I’d gotten consumed thinking of the big picture, which is enough to collapse almost anyone.

Anne Lamott always talks about “small assignments,” but I couldn’t shrink my viewfinder to that. She keeps an empty picture frame at her writing desk– I think it’s one inch by one inch. She tells herself to focus only on what can be seen in that frame.

I’ve never known how to write a book besides emptying myself of sentences until the right sentences end up on the page. Then rearranging the sentences until they are in the right order. If there is a wrong way, I will take it first. I will take 400 wrong ways before I find myself and my story pointed in the right direction, and then I’m shocked and amazed.

And yet, I’ve somehow been telling myself not to move until I’m sure it’s the right direction.

That might work for some people, but it’s never been my M.O.

Time stressed me out. Comparison made me miserable. I took all the things that I know work for me and decided they weren’t “right” … and all that happened was that I became paralyzed.

I want to pretend like I’m writing a first draft– where there are no rules and nothing matters except having fun with the story.

I’m gonna re-post my First Draft Manifesto, then cling to it like a life preserver.

Blog readers repeatedly tell me they want to know more about the creative process, the road to publishing … and through publishing … and life on the other side of publishing, especially in regard to working on a second book. They ask where I get my ideas, how I plan, how I execute, how I get over writer’s block.

And here’s the thing: I don’t feel like an expert, by any stretch of the imagination. So sometimes it feels pretentious to me to offer advice when I’m such a novice myself. With that caveat, I am always happy to talk about creativity, so let’s dive in.

MINDSET

1. Do you have to write? Is it in your blood? Is writing a part of your identity and calling?

If it’s not, why start? Writing is deeply meaningful, yes– but it’s also hard and painful, it’s slow work that is very unlikely to make you rich, and true creativity requires you give so much of yourself to the task.

George Orwell said: “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

2. The journey is probably going to be longer and slower than you think.

You might never have your work published. If you write because you have to write, because you’re a writer in your bones, then this won’t matter. (Or at least it won’t matter enough to stop you!)

3. Don’t quit your day job. Yet.

If you are a talented communicator, you will be able to find work, work that puts food on the table, pays the rent, renews your prescription meds (you think I’m joking, but I’m not). Having your basic needs met will allow you to pour more of your energy into your creative pursuits. In that sense, you may not even want your day job to be especially creative– many of us have a limit to our daily creative energy; for us, it’s better to use a different part of our brains during the work day and save that creative energy for writing.

GETTING STARTED

4. Read extensively.

I knew a man who wanted to be a novelist, but he claimed he didn’t have enough time to read. This is like someone saying they want to be an Olympic athlete but don’t have time to use the weight room.

Read like crazy: everything [good] you can get your hands on, but especially in your genre. Poetry too; it will improve your prose.

Stephen King makes it clear: “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

Annie Proulx says: “You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.”

5. Write extensively, even when you’re not inspired.

As many have noted before, amateurs wait for inspiration; everyone else just gets up and goes to work. Might as well. You need to put 10,000 hours of practice into something to become an expert. Better get started.

6. You don’t need anything fancy: just a word processor or a pen and paper.

I know people who swear by Scrivener and others who use something like WriteRoom or DarkRoom to limit distractions, but ultimately, all you need is a way to record your story. Some people choose to write by hand first, then transfer it into an electronic document later, and there are studies that say writing by hand does slow a writer down, which can have many benefits. As for me, I use a computer for that exact reason– I don’t want to slow down while I’m writing. But later, when I need to solve issues, figure out plot holes, brainstorm new scenes, I sit down with a notebook and pen too.

7. Do your research, but don’t let it become procrastination.

I have friends who are brilliant writers– but who will spend so much time plotting and planning and world-building and researching that they never really get around to writing their stories. I admit everyone is different here (some writers plot extensively a la J.K. Rowling, some writers write by the seat of their pants a la Ray Bradbury)– and research and details are important— but don’t let anything keep you from actually writing. The research should propel your project forward, not stall it out.

8. Learn the craft.

I know that some of the greatest writers had no formal education in it, but as for me? Well, I needed a bachelor’s degree in writing to give me roots and wings. Set aside some money to take a course or attend a writer’s workshop. Read books about craft (my favorites: The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass and The Anatomy of Story by John Truby) and the writing life (my favorites: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield).

9. Solicit feedback and revise.

Join a writing group or find some beta writers. Better yet, do both. Make sure they actually know what good literature is. They should be good writers themselves or at least good readers. And do take their advice or at the very least try it out. No one said you have to keep your revisions. Take their feedback, make revisions, and then decide whether to take it or leave it. It goes without saying (I hope) that all this should be done without putting up a fuss. You need feedback to make your writing sparkle. Well, at least most writers do.

Jeanette LeBlanc says: “Never get too attached to the first draft of anything – this includes writing, art, homes, love. You will revise and revise and revise. We are always in the midst of our own becoming.”

THINGS TO REMEMBER

10. Genres have word count guidelines.

Debut authors should be especially aware of this. Many literary agents won’t even bother with a manuscript that falls outside the genre word count guidelines. (Not that it has never happened– but it’s the exception, not the rule). There’s an excellent, detailed post about this Writer’s Digest.

11. Screw trends.

Write what you’re passionate about, not whatever is trendy in your genre. By the time you finish your novel about [insert trendy, current topic here], the topic will probably no longer be trendy or current.

12. The only true practice for writing a novel-length book is to write a novel-length book.

Short stories are their own separate beast, in my mind, so if you want to write a book, you have to DO IT. Does that mean your first book has a high chance of being not-so-great? Well, yes. I and most of the writers I’m friends with did not publish the very first novel that we wrote. I always say I had to write a book to learn I could do it before I could then write a good one.

13. You have all the permission in the world to write an awful first draft.

In fact, in the writing community, we commonly refer to these as “shitty first drafts.”

Hemingway said: “The first draft of anything is shit.”

Anne Lamott spends an entire chapter of Bird by Bird discussing “shitty first drafts”: “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. What I’ve learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head.”

If it helps you to look at the flip-side, consider Jane Smiley’s take: “Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.”

Whatever way you look at it, remember that you have permission to write something that will not be the final something.

14. Perseverance and talent are both important in writing; if you want to publish, perseverance is more important than talent.

Maybe that’s a bold thing to say, but I really believe it. The writer-friends of mine who are published who wrote a first terrible-to-semi-awful first book? After they did that, they set it aside and wrote a second book. A third. A fourth. They didn’t stop after being rejected once or twice, and– say what you will– to spend years on a manuscript that never sees the light of day, then turn around and do that all over again without any guarantees? That’s gutsy. That’s driven. That’s why I said what I said in the first point of this post.

Thanks for reading, folks! In my upcoming posts, I’ll talk more about querying literary agents, getting a book deal, and what comes after. Stay tuned.

And please do leave a comment! I would love to have a discussion here; I’m not interested in being the only voice.

Oh man, I have read so many great books about writing, both about the craft and the writing life. Here are some of my FAVORITES:

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott *The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass *Writing Down the Bones by Natalie GoldbergThe Art of Slow Writing by Louise deSalvoThe Anatomy of Story by John TrubyThe War of Art by Steven PressfieldThe Forest for the Trees by Betsy LernerThe Writing Life by Annie Dillard

* my favorites of my favorites

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer? How did you develop your skills during your earlier years (such as during high school)?

I’m not sure I made a conscious decision about being a writer; writing (like wands) feels like something that chooses you. That said, I have always loved telling stories. I first decided I wanted to write a book when I was in 2nd grade. I tried my hand at fiction in 3rd grade (oh man, it is sooooo funny and dramatic!). In junior high, I wrote a soap opera in a notebook that I passed around to my friends, and in high school and college, I focused on poetry.

There are two things that writers have to do to develop their skills, no matter what age or writing-level they are at:

Write. It sounds silly, but just like with anything, practice is how we improve. This is true in sports and art and public speaking, in how to be a good listener, how to perform illusions, and how to train for a marathon. You have to write, write, write– and you will likely have to write a lot of crappy stuff first. But do it. Expel it. Get that time in on your training-wheels first.

Now, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t other ways to develop one’s writing! Advice/critique/feedback/workshopping (whatever you want to call it) is critical. And you can learn about techniques like metaphor and what sounds are most satisfying to the human ear and how to manipulate your readers’ emotions (manipulate is such a harsh-sounding word, but most fiction readers go into a book hoping for this!). Two of the books I listed above– The Emotional Craft of Fiction and The Anatomy of Story– are craft books that get into the nitty-gritty details.

But at any (and every) stage? Read and write.

What do you do (or tell yourself) when you are unmotivated to write? Are you ever overwhelmed with how much work it takes to write a book?

First of all, YES, I often get overwhelmed with how much time and energy goes into writing a full-length work of fiction. In fact, in college, I focused on poetry partly because a poem can be so short, whereas fiction is such a big undertaking. But that’s why I have to take a novel one word at a time, one day at a time, and why I have to split it up into about one trillion smaller tasks or, as Anne Lamott would call them, “short assignments.” (I actually do call them short assignments on my to-do list!)

When I am unmotivated to write, I go back to my lists. I either choose one small assignment I am excited about or, sometimes, I might not even be excited about it, but I tell myself, “Just 20 minutes. See what happens in 20 minutes.” In both of these cases, my wheels usually get spinning and three hours later I am sad to put the manuscript away for the evening.

How much of writing is intuitive?

Gosh, I don’t know. Sometimes the things that feel so intuitive to me are the things my writing group and editor hate the most. Sometimes, though, those things are a stroke of brilliance– and not even a brilliance I can attribute to myself. When ideas like that come from nowhere, it truly does not feel like I deserve credit. For someone like me, whose spiritual life encompasses all other parts of my life, I can see God at work in my writing. I think, if one has read a lot of great literature and one has put in hours upon hours of writing practice (Malcolm Gladwell says you need to practice 10,000 hours to gain expertise in any field), that intuition is going to be built in you. And if you add an outside influence into that? Mmm.

What’s the most important part(s) of preparing a book for querying?

Every part.

If we are talking fiction here, the manuscript must be as polished and perfect as it can be prior to querying. Along with that, you have to write a query letter that is intriguing, plays by the rules of the agent, and ends up in the right agent’s inbox.

Have any inspiration for young writers or those just getting started?

Yes! I love this:

Have other writing-related questions for me? Click here to ask me anything! 🙂

Salt Novel is getting closer, but it won’t be done before the end of the year. The exciting news is that my agent, my editor, and I all want another pair of eyes on the manuscript, so I’m getting to work with an editor I really admire who has worked on NYT Bestsellers in the YA world. I’ll get notes from her in mid-January, which means a 2.5 month break from my novel! It’s quite needed. I’ve been working on this since I finished Truest back in 2013– well, along with a time where I wrote out a draft of Yes Novel. Speaking of …

Yes Novel. For those of you who didn’t know what it was about, it’s about a boy named Asa with OCD. If you’re active in the YA community, you’ll know that John Green’s latest novel just came out last month. About a girl named Aza with OCD.

Yup. So Yes Novel is headed to the backburner for now.

But all this means that I have 2.5 months to brainstorm new ideas. Or, as my therapist put it, to “be playful.” I am truly, deeply excited to just explore ideas and characters and names without any stressful deadlines I have to meet. I have a handful of ideas (Fox Novel, Ivy Novel, Glass Novel, Gold Novel, Egg Novel) and a handful of characters that have been … percolating. It’ll be fun to mix and match and dream.

And you can’t write while you eat, so maybe just one episode of New Girl. Ok, two episodes.

Speaking of food, I need to get groceries. I should make a grocery list.

Man, I love lists. What else do I need to do this weekend?

I really need to dedicate time to brainstorming. Add that to the list. Brainstorm about marking, book research, and blog.

Wow, the blog. I should blog. Yes, and that will get me warmed up to work on the novel.

Book research. I should read those library books before they’re due.

And then take notes.

And then brainstorm over the notes.

Maybe I should actually write a little bit about what I learned from the library books. That’s still progress, right? Short assignments?

I just need to run to pick up my prescription, and then it will be time to write.

Except Target exhausts me. Just a tiny nap. A short one. Well, okay, an hour. Two hours.

Crap. I napped three hours. Now I feel like a bum. And I still haven’t written. I should write.

And I will. I just have to wake up a little bit. Let me just eat some dinner, and then I’ll attack the novel.

Chipotle was not a good choice. I can’t write with my stomach hurting like this. Plus I have a headache. I’ll take some Ibuprofen, drink some water, wait till I can focus. I can’t focus when I feel like crap. No way. No one would expect me to.

Last week was so incredibly productive. I had to take my laptop and write in my bed, since my office somehow seemed too overwhelming, too formal, too demanding.

So I wrote in my bed. It was a simple measure I could take to feel safer. I don’t know. Am I alone in this?

It makes me think of Virginia Woolf, of A Room of One’s Own, of how I, at 18, was so idealistic about writing that I wrote not one but two research papers meant to disprove Woolf’s claims, and how, a decade later, I would wonder, Maybe she was right.

Man, writing is hard. I saw this posted on social media today. I felt it.

I’m not complaining. Or I’m trying not to, at least. I have a calling on my life, and I am rising to it. No, my writing life isn’t easy, but it is sacred.

For me, being a perfectionist means that writing a book can be a slow form of torture. You see, it takes a long time for a book to even begin to resemble perfection. You have to spend months, even years, sitting uncomfortably in the middle of a mess, working through sloppy drafts and chasing rabbit trails into very disorganized forests.

Or maybe that’s just me.

In any case, it’s a continual lesson in learning to enjoy the process and not just the product. If I only enjoy the product, I will get to be happy about 24 hours out of every three years. This is a journey of embracing uncertainty, letting myself wait in the cold water till I begin to adjust.

And that’s the story of my life with OCD too. Heck, the story of my life, period.

I– a perfectionist, an OCD survivor– want pretty things in pretty boxes with pretty bows on top. I– an artist, an OCD survivor– know that’s not what life looks like. Life is full of doubt and wrong directions, wasted time and imperfect choices. Life is full of discomfort and years and years and years of tolerating discomfort … with the hope there is a pretty thing in a pretty box with a pretty bow at the end. But it is not guaranteed.

So, is art in general– or writing specifically– a difficult career choice for a perfectionist? Heck yes. But it’s fulfilling, worthwhile, hard, dirty, beautiful work– and it is helping me appreciate this fulfilling, worthwhile, hard, dirty, beautiful world.

If you love what you do for work, it sure makes it more meaningful and enjoyable … but it doesn’t change that it is still work.

This is as true in art as it is in any field.

I am so overwhelmed with gratitude that I get to write, and that I even get paid to do it. And I know some people will negate what I say next by claiming writing is privileged work. Maybe it is. I don’t know. Maybe it is just for some people and not for others. I certainly don’t mean to whine or complain.

I merely want to say that art is hard work. So hard. Harder than any job I’ve ever had, scarier than any job I’ve ever had, emotionally draining unlike any other relationship in my life. Sometimes it feels impossible. Sometimes it feels like it might kill me. Art has sent me into therapy, required medication. Nothing in my world has thrown more resistance at me than art, my own art.

I’ve just needed to toss these thoughts out into the universe for a little while, and so now, tonight, I am. Thanks for listening. Thanks for trying to understand, even if it sounds silly to you. Now, tell me about you. What part of your life throws the most resistance at you, friend?

I got these great questions from a reader/Twitter pal/friend for her school project, and I thought people might have some interest in reading the responses. Just in case, I’m pasting them below!

1. What do you like most about your job and why?

Hearing from readers who were impacted by what I’ve written is always a highlight. It’s one of the main reasons why I write– in the hope that my stories will resonate with readers and make them think. It’s also fun when you get into a great writing groove and hours fly by like seconds. It’s so satisfying to enjoy what you’ve written.

2. What do you like least about your job and why? (Maybe revising? 😛 It’s not very fun!)

The middle part of writing a novel is probably the hardest part. The beginning is fun because you’re charging toward an idea, and the final touches are great too because you’re perfecting everything. But when you’re in the middle, it’s too early to see the finish line– plus, you’re too far past the starting line to easily change course. I can get a little crazy and sad during the middle of writing a novel– for me this is usually drafts two and three.

3. How did you decide to get into the writing field and how did you enter the field? What alternative ways could someone enter the writing field?

I’ve been a storyteller since I could speak and a writer since I learned my letters. I wrote all through junior high and high school, then studied writing in college.

There is no specific requirement to being a writer except to write well. Some people can do that without extensive training. For me, I studied creative writing as an undergraduate student, where I focused mostly on poetry. After college, I took a little break from writing before diving in to writing my first (unpublished) novel. The vast majority of stories about how people got published are the same: write a great book, write a great query letter, secure an agent, and let the agent secure a book deal. I have writer friends who never finished high school, and I have writer friends who have an MFA in writing, so there’s a wide range. It’s critical to spend lots of time reading incredible literature; this is an education in itself!

4. What training would you recommend for someone who wanted to enter this field now? What skills and background are needed to get into this field now?

As I mentioned above, there is no specific education necessary, although many find a college degree in writing very helpful (at least I did!). It helps to be an avid reader and someone with a great imagination. The writers I know are fascinating people who are usually fascinated by the world.

5. What is the salary range for a person in this field? Entry level to top salary? (I know that’s kind of a funky question, particularly for authors!)

When an author gets published traditionally, he or she is given an advance, which is a sum of money paid to the writer from the publisher upfront. The author then tries to “earn out the advance” in royalty sales; after earning out, all the royalties (minus the literary agent’s cut) go to the writer. Advances have an incredible range. One author might get a $5000 advance. One might get $2 million.

6. What personal qualities do you feel are most important in your work and why?

Since I identified as a poet before identifying as a young adult author, it’s really important to me to have great imagery and strong diction in my stories. Characters are of the utmost importance to me, as they are for many or most writers. I find that writers who write contemporary stories sometimes especially rely on characters, since our books have to build their own “magic,” as opposed to, say, a fantasy novel which might have “real” magic in it. Not to discount characterization for ANY writer. It is, in my opinion, the most important part of any great story.

The other things that I like in books (and try to include in mine) are opportunities to learn and encouragement to think.

7. What are the tasks you do in a typical workday? Would you describe them?

I work a day job (as most young writers do) from 8 to 4:30; then I go home, eat dinner and relax a little bit before I retreat into my home office to write. Some days this looks like generating material; some days this looks like revision; some days this is research; some days this is plotting. There are so many parts of writing a book that are not actually writing. Research takes up a lot of my time. My current work in progress takes place on an island; I spent a whole evening researching boats in the Pacific Northwest just so that I could write one convincing paragraph! But it’s worth it. Details matter! I will usually write from about 7-9 pm, although if things are going well, I will keep working till 10, 11, or midnight. I try to get 7-8 hours of sleep or else I screw everything else up. I also keep a process journal while I write too, in which I brainstorm, sketch ideas, plot, and the like.

8. What types of stress do you experience on the job?

EVERY KIND OF STRESS. Will my agent like this? Will my editor like this? Do I like this? Will it sell? Will I make money? Will I earn out my advance? How do I make sure this character changes enough by the end of the book? Will this story matter to people? AM I A FRAUD??

Plus, there’s a fair amount of public speaking, but I don’t mind that. I know a lot of people do though!!

9. What types of people survive and do well in the writing field?

People who persist. I’m not even joking. Many of the writers you know and love and whose books are on your shelves often wrote another book or two that didn’t get published before one finally did. It’s hard to pour yourself into a project for four or five years, only to have it not get an agent … then to turn around and just start a new project. Writers hear a lot of NOs before that one YES changes things.

This also applies to the writing itself. I use the phrase “show up,” and by that, I mean the actual hours of work put into a project. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed by a project the size of a novel, and sometimes that fear is crippling. But showing up every day– putting in an hour or two or five of real work– keeps you moving toward your goal. You have to show up and persist in order to succeed at writing.

10. Are resumes important in getting a job? (or I guess query letters? :P)

The query letter is the key to getting a literary agent, and the literary agent is the key to getting a book deal. Query letters are, for novelists, a whole different type of writing. You spend years with a creative hat on, then need to put on a business/marketing hat to write the letter. A good query will only go so far though– the manuscript has to also be solid!

11. What are the opportunities for promotion? (another weird question for a writer, but it was in the book)

This looks different for different writers. “Moving up” might mean selling more books– or getting a higher advance– or going on a book tour– or having your book be optioned for a movie. Every writer has their own idea of personal success. Making the New York Times bestseller list. Getting starred reviews. Being a keynote speaker at a conference. It all depends.

12. Is the field of writing expanding or taking new directions?

I see writers taking tremendous creative risks lately, and I love it. Plus, there is the whole avenue of self-publishing, which is open to anyone now with things like Kindle Direct Publishing. Trends are constantly changing in the world of novels– best not to hop on trends: they will be long over before your book makes it to print.

13. What related occupations could I research?

Being a literary agent or an editor (for a publishing house or freelance. Copyediting. Public relations. Creative writing instructor. On the other side of the spectrum, technical writing. As I mentioned, most new writers work a “day job” in addition to their writing. If you have a degree in English, you have a lot of options you can go; such a degree teaches you to communicate well and think critically, and every employer wants that!

14. Is there anything else about being a writer that would be helpful for me to know?

It is a roller coaster of emotions. It can be a tough field for perfectionists or people who have anxiety. (But not impossible— I have both!) It’s tremendously rewarding. You spend a lot of time alone, more than you might guess. You have to be okay with things being icky and uncertain for long periods of time– but draft after draft after draft, it all comes together.